Organic composite phase change materials (PCMs) have been extensively studied, and it is important to investigate the effect of added components on the phase change process of the organic matrix. Herein, the phase transition process of the composite PCM with 1-octadecanol (OD) as the matrix adsorbed by a network framework composed of 1,3:2,4-di-(3,4-dimethyl) benzylidene sorbitol (DMDBS) and expanded graphite (EG) was measured using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at several linear heating rates. Using isoconversional and multivariate non-linear regression methods, a two-step consecutive reaction model for the composite PCM was established, while the apparent activation energies and pre-exponential factors were determined. The reaction mechanism of the first step was altered compared to pure OD, while the activation energies significantly decreased at the initial stage of the phase transition process and increased at the later stage. Combined with microscopic morphology analysis, the main reasons were the size and nanoconfinement effect. The predictions of the composite PCM under various conditions suggested that the composite PCM had a wider available temperature range compared to pure OD. This research provided a new idea for the in-depth study of the phase transition process of organic composite PCMs, which was helpful for the evaluation of organic composite PCMs.
Keywords: differential scanning calorimetry; kinetic predictions; non-isothermal kinetics; organic composite phase change materials; phase transition processes.